


same old song and dance

by Duck_Life



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coping, Drinking, Episode: s13e19 Funeralia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Episode: s13e19 Funeralia, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Castiel talks to Dean after seeing Naomi again for the first time in years.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	same old song and dance

Dean watches Cas pour himself a generous helping of whiskey, stagger over to the table and then just… sit there, staring at the glass. “You okay?” Dean says, coming to sit across from him. He’d noticed Cas was a little shaky after his visit upstairs, but he’d been preoccupied with Rowena. When Cas had come in the door, he’d given him a quick once-over to make sure he was whole and himself, and then he’d focused on gathering what Rowena needed to track Gabriel.

Now, he makes sure he’s giving Cas his full attention. 

“I, um,” Cas says, tracing a finger around the rim of his glass. He shakes himself and looks up, meeting Dean’s gaze. “Did we speak? Have we spoken?”

Dean stares at him. “Uh. Yes? A lot? Kind of a favorite pastime of ours, you know. Talking.”

“No, I…” Cas huffs. “I saw you yesterday, before I went to Heaven’s gate. And then I came back here. Did you and I see each other in between then? Did you see me? Did we speak on the phone?” 

Dean rubs a hand down his face, worried. “No. No, we didn’t, Cas. What the hell’s going on?”

“Good. That’s good,” Cas mumbles. “I didn’t think we had.”

“Cas.” 

Dean watches him, waits for him to tell him what the hell he’s talking about. 

Cas opens his mouth to say something, reconsiders for a gulp of whiskey, and then tries again. “I saw Naomi.”

“Naomi?” Dean says, color draining from his face when recognition sets in. “What,  _ Naomi _ -Naomi? I thought she was dead.” 

“Yes. Well.” Another swallow of whiskey. “Apparently, she faked her death. Because everything she does is a lie.” He finishes his drink, and when he gets up for another Dean doesn’t stop him. He just sits at the map table, giving Cas the space and quiet to say more if he wants. Cas returns with more liquor and the bottle, but he doesn’t look any calmer. “I just. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t being used to spy on you and Sam.” He grimaces, glancing around the room. “I still might be. I— I shouldn’t even be here—”

“Hey, whoa,” Dean says, holding a hand up. “You said Heaven wanted to find Gabriel, right? So we’ve got the same end goals here. And we’re already showing our hand. Why would she need a spy?”

“I… that’s true,” Cas acknowledges. 

“Besides,” Dean says, leaning across the table toward him, “last time Naomi tried to control you, you  _ didn’t let her _ . I remember.” 

Cas winces at the memory— Dean, battered and bloody on the floor of the crypt. Nose broken, radiating pain. Because of him. There are things he wants to say, aborted sentences he can’t quite give voice to. 

_ Dean, I’m sorry that—  _

_ Dean, I wish— _

_ Dean, I should never have—  _

What he does end up saying is, “Did I ever tell you what she did to me? What precisely she did.” He sees them again, all those dead Deans, broken bodies on the floor. 

“I mean,” Dean says, “the gist. She mind-whammied you, controlled you.”

Cas stares at him, his eyes watery and distant. “She made me kill you.”

Dean frowns. “She made you  _ try _ .”

“No,” Cas goes on, “I mean…” He sighs. “She had… you might call it a ‘holodeck,’” he explains, putting air-quotes around the word. “And she made me practice killing you. Over and over… and over again.” A shudder passes through him as he remembers all those identical bodies littering the warehouse, the way he had felt so right, so  _ justified _ and yet so horribly, achingly empty. 

Dean just gapes, like he isn’t sure how to respond to that. “That, um,” he says finally, “that’s fucked up.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Fucked up of  _ her _ to do that to you,” Dean rushes with more explanation, trying to dredge Cas up from the well of guilt he’s currently sitting in. “Cas, it wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you. You know that, right?” 

It’s been years, but he can still remember the angry words he hurled at Cas, about trust, about honesty. Of course, at the time he’d only been mad at Cas for running off with the angel tablet (and stressed about Sam damn-near killing himself with the trials, and mourning Benny, and still dealing with Purgatory bullshit, etcetera etcetera.) He’d never been angry at Cas for what Naomi had forced him to do. 

There just hadn’t been much time to articulate that back then. To make Cas understand. 

“I would never hold that against you,” Dean says, carefully enunciating each word. Hoping the emphasis carries through. “What was done to you? What was taken from you? And hey…” He smiles a fake smile, one with plenty of mileage. “You killed a bunch of lookalikes but you managed to stop when it was the real thing. I don’t know, maybe you knew.”

Cas looks at him. “None of the fakes said they needed me,” he says. “None of them said I was family.” 

“Pretty shitty replicas, then,” Dean decides. 

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. (Doesn’t mean they don’t still haunt him, in a way. Doesn’t mean there aren’t times when he closes his eyes and still sees Dean’s body crunching and twisting and falling under his own hands.)

“Listen,” Dean says, reaching across the table to refill Cas’s whiskey glass before taking a swig straight from the bottle. “I’m sorry you had to face her again.” Dean shakes his head, eyes darting away before he refocuses on Cas. “That had to have been tough. I mean, I…” He looks away again, scared to put into words the easiest comparison that comes to mind. “I remember. Having to see… Alastair… again. After Hell.” 

Castiel nods. Castiel understands. 

“Naomi was the one who first made me realize that… I’m broken,” Cas says. “My life is full of holes. Every time I spoke up, or stepped out of line… my whole  _ life _ … Naomi or one of the other angels would just take me aside and rewrite me. And… and I wonder if, maybe if I had been able to retain some of those lost memories, maybe I wouldn’t have made the mistakes I’ve made.”

He gulps air and then whiskey, face pinched in regret and sorrow as he contemplates all his many failures. 

“Maybe you wouldn’t have had to push me so hard back when Zachariah was holding you,” Cas explains, “maybe I could have stopped Lucifer from being freed, maybe I could have avoided the wars in Heaven—”

“Cas, Cas,” Dean says, waving his hands in an attempt to stem the onslaught of self-doubt and self-loathing. “Look. We can’t change any of that now. And what-ifs don’t make anything different. What’s done is done… what matters is you’re here now. I’m here. We’re okay.” He watches Cas try to believe that, try to calm his own frayed nerves. “Cas,” Dean says carefully, “I promise you. I will  _ never _ let Naomi or anyone else fuck with your memories again. Alright? You’re your own person. As long as I’m alive, I’ll fight like hell to keep it that way.” 

Cas nods and sips whiskey and tries to do what he always does— believe in Dean Winchester. “Thank you,” he says after a long silence. 

Dean says, “Of course.” 

“And thank you,” Cas adds, “for the first time. When she was controlling me, and I was… when we were in the crypt. Thank you for always knowing what to say to bring me back to myself.” 

“Anytime, man,” Dean says, choosing to ignore the bleakness of the statement. Because Cas has been mindwiped, has been lobotomized, has been cursed, has been possessed. Because there’s every possibility it will happen again. 

And Dean will be there when it does, ready to say the right words. 


End file.
